Tourist repellent
The Amsterdam tourist office just outside Amsterdam Central Station is a very busy place. With 1.5 million tourists a year, I’m sure they get all kinds of questions from the hordes who don’t have English as their first language.
You’d think that such an important point of contact for tourists would take English more seriously or have someone check it. This sign says ‘we don’t care, we’re fed up’. Sure, they get requests for public transport tickets all day long because the municipal public transport office is next door. Their frustration is delightful.
(Photo: Arnoud)
July 25th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Zo’n affiche kan tot misverstanden leiden.
toerist: Please where I buy ticket for bus please? No here?
balie: Oh yes, we do sell bus tickets.
toerist: But sign says…
balie: The sign says whe cannot sell the public transport – it doesn’t mention tickets. If someone is interested in purchasing the public transport company, they should stop bothering us and go to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I think these people show they care for public transport. Because if the public transport is sold it is not certain whether it remains public…
More efficient would be to state: ‘Public transport not for sale!’
August 27th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Zo mooi!!
i suppose you’re partially right Remco. 🙂
September 23rd, 2006 at 6:41 pm
The funny thing is that the sentence also sounds alot like Engrish! (Written by a Japanese employee??)